Faith Bandler

(1918)

Source: Smoke Signals, May 1964

Faith Bandler is well known for her active role in publicising
the YES case for the Aboriginal question in the 1967
Referendum.

She was born in northern New South Wales in 1919, one of eight
children. Her father, Peter Mussing, had been kidnapped from
Ambryn, an island in what was known as the New Hebrides, and
brought to Australia, enslaved, to work on sugar plantations.
Awareness of her father's past experience exerted a strong
influence on Bandler in her later political activism, as did her
own experience of racial exclusion when she was growing up.

In an interview in 1996 Faith reflected on the effect of her
early experiences of race:

I grew up with a family that had tremendous freedom. There were
eight of us. We lived on about two or three acres - we lived out in
the garden. It was all about doing your own thing. And one member
of the family wouldn't have a clue of what the other member would
be doing. We all went our own way. We all had the right to vote.
We, with a few other Islanders, were the only Blacks around the
town. My mother was a person - you know the local businessmen used
to dock their hats to her.

So you know that was the environment I grew up in! And during
the war I joined the Land Army and I was picking cherries at Young
for a nice boss - there were three of us there doing that. And then
there was a fence and there was another farm. And in the morning a
truckload of people would come from Cowra. Now we would be paid
whatever the wage was - I've just forgotten. It was minimal because
we were in the Army. But everyone who got out of that truck was
Black. And, I sort of thought, 'Well - you know - this is rather
nice' - and talk over the fence to them and so forth. And so I
said, 'What sort of pay do you get?' - you know. 'Oh, we're paid by
the basket' 'How much a basket?' 'Shilling'. Now the white piece
workers who were there - I can't remember what they were paid but
it wasn't a shilling a clothes basket.

And I began to think about these things - you know. So I suppose
that had an awful lot to do with becoming a committed person. And
you know I knew Pearl [Gibbs] very well and she belted me along.
She never gave me a day's peace when she was in Sydney. And I
thought, 'Well this can't be for nothing.' You know, 'this woman
knows what she's doing - it can't be for nothing.'

Faith met Lady Jessie Street through her involvement in the
peace movement in the late 1940s. Jessie Street would later call on
Faith to campaign for greater Commonwealth responsibility for
Aboriginal Australians. Another key meeting with Aboriginal
activist Pearl Gibbs in the early 1950s led to Faith Bandler's
involvement in establishing, with Pearl and others, a new
organisation to work for Aboriginal rights, the Sydney-based
Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship.

Well I suppose I would never've got involved had it not been for
Pearl Gibbs. I'm sure of that. You know the wonderful thing about
Pearl, was that she was not only a terrific fighter - game as they
come. She once said to me, 'The Libs are having their conference -
state conference - and I think we should bust the meeting'. So I
said, 'Who?' She said, 'You and me'. (laughs) I said, 'Oh Pearl.'
She said, 'Oh yes!' Anyhow it opened with a rather big splash at
David Jones [department store], you know, you can imagine it can't
you. And Pearl says, 'Come on!' Anyhow I remember - it's a little
vague and I don't want to tell you anything that is not accurate
except to say I recall Pearl going up to the Premier who was Askin
at the time and he said to her, 'Look you've got my sympathy'. And
Pearl shouting - 'We don't want your sympathy! We want our
rights!' (chuckles) It was a wonderful experience. And I can
always recall - you know at the time I thought, I could never do
what this woman does. Never. Great woman. An amazing
woman. She influenced my life considerably. There were other women
as well but you see she not only had that courage. She understood
what the rights for women was about. And she came one morning and
had breakfast with us. This was after Hans and I were married and
we were living at North Sydney. And she liked us living at North
Sydney because it was only ten minutes or so from Redfern! Anyhow
she came one morning and it was voting day - it was a Saturday. And
I said, 'Oh gosh I wish I didn't have to go and vote today'. And
she ripped me to pieces! And she said, 'Women went to gaol for that
right!' She was wonderful really - she really was.

The Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship began in 1956 and was
Bandler's political base for the next 13 years. She worked closely
with Jack and Jean Horner, Emil and Hannah Witton, Ken Brindle,
John Baker and Dulcie Flower both in the Fellowship and when Sydney
became the executive headquarters of the Federal Council for the
Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) in
1967.

Bandler's recollections of Ken Brindle give a sense of the
strength of the relationships she formed.

Ken Brindle became a member of the Aboriginal-Australian
Fellowship rather early in the piece. And it was he who got us to
go into - oh no we were going into Redfern to hold monthly dances
to raise money but to also give the locals a dance that they could
go to with some protection from the cops.

Ken Brindle came to one of our monthly meetings and he said -
you know kind of, 'What are you lot doing over there on
our property?' Because we weren't aware that he was
running dances too for his football club. And it - so you know he
had a big piece of us. And he says, 'That's our - that's our area!
You know, you want to stay out there!' And in the end he said, 'Why
don't we do it together'. Ah, he was beautiful! And so Ken and - we
did that work together over there in Redfern. And every time the
cops raided Ken's house - bashed the door down or something - even
if it was two or three in the morning - they'd ring Jack and Jean
Horner. And Jack and Jean would go and bail Ken out. And they were
having their house - they lived up here then - their house and
gardens (chuckling) guarantor or their car or something! And, then
Ken of course had a big blow in with the cops - cops got stuck into
him and if I knew Ken he got stuck into them too. But we were in
courts for weeks and weeks because the Council for Civil Liberties
decided they'd challenge it. And that was the type of person Ken
was - you know. He fronted up as a splendid witness. And we'd
packed the courtroom. And we'd packed the courtroom with all the
middle class white women, who were doing charitable work - you know
- for Aborigines. And it was at the time when they wore spiked
heels and high hats and white gloves. And here were all of these
middle class women in court for this Black from Redfern if you
please! And it was at a time when that kind of thing was absolutely
unheard of - unheard of. But then you know - I mean he
never gave you a minute's peace. Like the phone would ring at seven
in the morning and he says, 'What the bloody hell are you doing? I
bet you're still in bed there'. Or something like that. 'Well
that's all very well but you know the coppers were around here last
night. Now they've chucked so-and-so and so-and-so in the clink!'
Well I mean! He was marvellous he was.

And then of course came the time when we got him involved in
FCAATSI. He wasn't awfully keen on FCAATSI. Ken wasn't interested.
He said - I recall one occasion I said to him, 'Look Ken if you're
doing nothing on such and such a day come with me to court',
because the case for equal wages for Black stockmen was opening
before the full bench of the arbitration court in Sydney. And it
happened to be on Aboriginal National Day which was a Friday - or
whenever it was - I don't know. And he said, 'What are you going to
court for?' And I said, 'Well, it's the opening for the hearing for
the equal wages for Black stockmen'. 'Listen, your job - you live
down here! And this is your job. Get your mind out of those Blacks
in the North! (chuckles) You know - we got coppers to front up to
here! People haven't got houses! What are you worrying about that
lot up there for!' (laughs).

And he said, 'You know when you came with that stuff about the
referendum I got a bit nervy'. He said, 'I didn't want to hear
about referendums. What about a decent house for a man to live in!'
(laughs) So one day I said, 'You know Ken you ought to get your mob
down to the conference. It's coming up soon'. An Easter conference.
And he said, 'Yeah I think so too. Can we have a dance - get a bit
of juice for the old bus?' So I said, 'Oh yeah that's okay' - put a
dance on for petrol. And that - would you believe - that bus was
painted black and white. (laughs) And the wonderful thing about
FCAATSI was that it was so void of racism. You know the Blacks
worked with the Whites and the Whites worked with the Blacks. It
was marvellous. And we got results so what did it matter! Anyhow,
he got this bus and he took it down the south coast - and he packed
it. And he took this mob over to Canberra. Well you know - he just
arrived.

In 1963, Faith Bandler became the New South Wales state
secretary of the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement
representing the interests of Aboriginal people from New South
Wales. In 1967, after the federal government had agreed to hold a
referendum on the Aboriginal question, Bandler was appointed New
South Wales campaign director, a position she fulfilled with
energy, skill and enthusiasm. She argued that a YES vote was a vote
for equal rights for Aboriginal citizens. Bandler wanted to see
Aboriginal Australians accepted as equals, and as 'one people' with
white Australians. While this was a strong argument in gaining
support for the referendum in 1967, it was less popular after this
landmark vote when Indigenous Australians strove to assert their
right to cultural difference.

The next year Torres Strait Islanders were recognised as a
separate group when the organisation became the Federal Council for
the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders
(FCAATSI). Faith had this to say about the contribution of Torres
Strait Islanders to FCAATSI:

Well the Torres Strait Islanders were having a very tough time.
And they had to work for three months in some cases before they
even got paid - had to prove themselves as good pearl divers or
whatever - if you please, you know, before they got any pay at all.
And, well theirs was a very deprived society - extremely so - and
it was only because FCAATSI battled to get them to the conference
that we became aware of what their conditions were like up there.
It was not very good at all and there were serious health problems
and I do believe that those two delegates - or it may've been one
delegate I'm not sure - who came down and was in the deputation to
the Prime Minister Menzies that threw tremendous emphasis on the
problems - as far as we were concerned. And I think also that that
delegate who sat there and talked to Prime Minister Menzies
influenced Menzies considerably. You know, when one sat in an
office in Sydney it was hard to know what was being cooked up in
the other states.

From 1970, Faith Bandler was the General Secretary of FCAATSI.
She opposed the proposals at the 1970 conference that Aboriginal
and Islander Australians alone should vote and hold office,
maintaining, until her resignation in 1973, that the battle was
against racism and that this could best be fought in a racial
coalition.

Faith 'retired' from active political life in 1973 to research
and write about her father's experiences and about her brother's
life growing up in Australia. She also wrote a personal history of
FCAATSI, with the short title Turning the Tide, which
provides a lively and readable account of her association with the
Federal Council. Over the years Faith has continued to remind
Australians of the significance of the 1967 Referendum achievement,
both for Indigenous Australians and for the nation as a whole. For
her, the Referendum campaign was a high point.

I used to get very emotional about it because it possessed me. I
became totally obsessed with that campaign. There were times when I
would take as many as three meetings in a day. And I did things
that I would never have dreamed of doing: like going into a pulpit,
talking to church congregations, and putting up with people whose
ideas were totally foreign to me. And all I wanted was their vote
(chuckles). Of course it came about because, you could say the
referendum was the result of good team work. And I cannot pay a
higher tribute, as high a tribute to anyone as I do to Shirley
Andrews and Barry Christophers. But Shirley in particular as far as
the referendum was concerned. She worked with Hans to get those
petitions presented in the House every day. And I remember talking
to Menzies and he said, 'Your petition's become like the prayer of
the House now. It's first up everyday'. And he said, 'I made
history. It was the first time in history a Prime Minister's ever
presented a petition. He said, don't know whether I did the right
thing or not but I had no choice!' (laughs).

Source: The extracts on this page are from an
interview with Faith Bandler conducted by Sue Taffe and Leanne
Miller on 7 November 1996

Further reading

Faith Bandler, Turning the Tide: A Personal History of the
Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait
Islanders, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 1989